Athabasca (21 page)

"I just came on the bus in the middle of the road, like you saw it. The two security guys were lying in front of it, trying to get up. I got out to see what the matter was, and heard the racket of a helicopter engine, right close."

"Where was it?"

"Just over there. I'll show you."

He switched on a big flashlight and led the way over the frozen tundra. "Sounded like he had a problem with the motor -- kept running it up and letting it die again. Then he did go. Lifted off and headed thataway -- north. Here -- you can see the ski marks."

In the flashlight beam the imprint of long, heavy skis was still visible, though dusted over with the snow blown about by the rotor's down-draft.

"Any markings on the chopper, identification?" Carmody asked.

"Nothing -- it was just like a big black shadow against the sky. Couldn't even tell the color "exactly, but it looked off-white. Pair of small fins near the tail too."

"And then what happened? Where did the person fall?"

"A woman, it was. She screamed. Someplace over there." Johnson pointed. "Not too far."

"How high did she fall from?"

"Maybe a hundred feet. Maybe more."

"Must be dead. We'd better look, all the same. Oh, my God! One of the Bradys killed."

They went up an incline into the teeth of the wind. On top of the slope the ground was rounded into smooth, gentle humps. The flashlight beam, sweeping the snow, revealed nothing.

"Must have been around here," said Johnson doubtfully. "Can't have been much farther, or I'd never have seen the body at all. Try over there a bit."

They cast a little to their left. Suddenly Carmody, who had been walking on hard-frozen tundra, sank to his waist in snow. As he exclaimed and struggled to extricate himself from the drift, Johnson called, "Listen, I thought I heard something."

They waited, catching only the whine of the wind. Then Johnson heard the sound again -- a cry that sounded faint yet close at hand.

"There it is!" he shouted. "Sure as hell, someone calling. This way!"

They tried to move eastward, but both lunged into the deep snow again and realized that a rift in the ground ran in that direction.

"She's in the snow," cried Carmody. "Must be. Only way she could have survived the fall."

They regained the hard edge of the invisible miniature valley and followed it another twenty steps. Then they heard the cry again, almost beneath them. This time they shouted back and got an answer. A few more steps brought them to the lip of a hole about a yard across that had been punched vertically downward into the drift. Shining the light down it, they saw a bundle of powder-blue snowsuit.

"Hey! You! Mrs. Brady? Stella?" Carmody called. "Are you hurt?"

"No," came the muffled answer. "I'm not Mrs. Brady or Stella, and I'm not hurt. Just stuck."

"Who are you, then?"

"Corinne Delorme."

"Corinne! Heaven's sakes! John Carmody here. Hold on, and we'll get you right out of there." He sent Johnson running to the truck for a shovel and a rope, and in five minutes they had dug and hoisted the girl out. Considering she had been outdoors for more than half an hour, she was in remarkably good shape, mainly because the snow had insulated her and given her complete protection from the wind. But as soon as they got her into the warmth of the truck cab, reaction set in and she began to shudder uncontrollably.

Carmody's first impulse was to drive her to hospital, but then he changed his mind. Something -- he could not quite tell what -- made him favor a more devious approach. The guys in the helicopter must reckon she was dead. They must think they had another murder on their hands. It was a million-to-one that, she had fallen into the drifted-up ravine rather than onto the ground: five yards to either side, and every bone in her body would have been broken. Something might be gained, Carmody thought, if the kidnappers did not realize anyone had survived. Therefore he decided to move her away into safekeeping, at any rate until Brady and his team returned.

"Know what I want you to do?" Carmody said to Johnson. "Drive Miss Delorme to the isolation unit on the plant. The isolation unit. When you reach the main gates, have her keep down out of sight, on the floor. I don't want anyone to know where she is. Any bother, say you're on a special run for Mr. Shore. Okay?"

Johnson nodded.

"You hear that, Corinne?" Carmody lifted up her chin. "He'll take you to a good place at Athabasca. Nice and warm and comfortable. Out of the way, too. I'll see you back there as soon as I can make it."

Shock and reaction had knocked the girl to pieces for the moment, and she could not answer.

"Go on, then," Carmody told Johnson. "Drive."

Twelve

It was past midnight and still snowing heavily when Jim Brady arrived back in Fort McMurray, but the lobby of the Peter Pond Hotel was as crowded and bustling with activity as if it had been just after noon. Brady sank wearily into a chair and for the first time waved off a drink. The flight from Prudhoe Bay had been a grim one: between them, Brady, Dermott and Mackenzie had uttered hardly a word.

A tall, lean man, dark-moustached and heavily tanned, approached. "Mr. Brady? My name's Willoughby. Glad to make your acquaintance, sir, though not in these damnable circumstances."

"Ah -- the police chief." Brady smiled without humor. "And rough for you, Mr. Willoughby, to have this happen in your territory. I was sorry to hear that one of your men had been killed."

"I'm glad to say that report was premature. There was a great deal of confusion around here when we made that phone call to you. The man was shot through the left lung and certainly looked bad, but now the doctor says he has a more than even chance."

"That's something." Brady smiled wanly again.

Willoughby turned to two other men. "D'you know...?"

"Those two gentlemen I've met," said Brady. "Mr. Brinckman, Sanmobil security chief, and his deputy, Mr. Jorgensen. Odd -- for a couple of reportedly injured men, you look remarkably fit to me."

Brinckman said, "We don't exactly feel it. Like Mr. Willoughby said, things got exaggerated in the heat of the moment. No broken bones, no knife or gun injuries, but they did knock us about a bit."

"Pete Johnson -- the guy who raised the alarm -- will vouch for that," said Willoughby. "When he got there, Jorgensen was lying on the road, out cold, and Brinckman was wandering around in a daze. He didn't know if it was last night or last month."

Brady turned to another man who had appeared at his side. "Evening, Mr. Shore. Morning, rather. The Brady family seem to have disturbed a lot of people's sleep, I'm afraid."

"To hell with that." Shore was visibly upset. "I helped show Mrs. Brady and your daughter around the plant yesterday. That this should happen to her. Just as bad, that this should happen to you when you and your family were virtually our guests and you were trying to help us. A black day and a black eye for Sanmobil."

"Maybe not all that black," said Dermott. "God knows, it must be a traumatic experience to be kidnapped, but I don't believe any of the four is in immediate danger. We're not dealing with political fanatics such as you get in Europe or the Mideast. We're up against hard-headed business men with no personal animosity against their victims. They almost certainly regard them as bargaining counters." He clasped and unclasped his big hands. "They're going to make demands, probably outrageous, for the return of the captives, and if those demands are met, they'll honor the bargain. Professional kidnappers usually do. In their own twisted terms, it's sound business practice and plain common sense."

Brady turned to Willoughby. "We haven't really heard what happened. I assume you haven't had time to make wide-ranging inquiries?"

"Afraid not."

"They've just vanished into thin air?"

"Thin air is right. Helicopter, as you heard. They could be a few hundred miles away in any direction by this time."

"Any chance of airfield radar's having picked up their flight path?"

"No, sir. It's a million to one that they were flying below radar level. Besides, there are more palm trees in northern Alberta than there are radar stations. Down south, it's different. We've alerted the stations there to keep a watch, but nothing's been reported so far."

"Well" -- Brady steepled his fingers, sinking back in his chair -- "it might help if we could have a brief chronological account of what happened."

"That won't take long. Jay?"

Shore said, "Yes. I was the last person to see them, apart from these two" -- he pointed at Brinckman and Jorgensen. "They left in one of Sanmobil's minibuses, with Bill Reynolds driving."

Mackenzie cut in, "Were there any phone calls before they left?"

"I wouldn't know. Why?"

"Let me ask another question." Mackenzie looked at Brinckman. "How did the kidnappers stop your bus?"

"They had a truck slewed across the road. Blocked it completely."

"It couldn't have been there long. There's a fair bit of traffic on that road, and drivers wouldn't take kindly to being held up. Was there, in fact, any other traffic at the time?"

"I don't think so. No."

Willoughby said, "Your point, Mr. Mackenzie?"

"Plain as a pikestaff. The kidnappers were tipped off. They knew the precise time when Reynolds' bus left and when it could be expected at the interception point. Phone or short-wave radio -- even a CB would have been enough. Two things are for sure -- there was an informer, and he came from Sanmobil."

"Impossible!" Shore sounded shocked.

"Nothing else makes sense," said Brady. "Mackenzie's right."

"Good God!" Shore sounded outraged. "You make Sanmobil sound like a criminals' den."

"It's not a Sunday school," said Brady heavily.

Dermott turned back to Brinckman. "So Reynolds pulled up when he saw this truck across the road? Then?"

"It was all so quick. There were two men lying in the road. One was face-down and very still, as if he were hurt real bad. The other was moving -- he'd both hands clutching at the small of his back and was rolling from side to side. He seemed to be in agony. Two other men came running toward us -- well, hardly running, more staggering. One was limping badly, and he had an arm stuck inside his mackinaw jacket as if he was trying to support it. Both of them had a hand up in front of their faces, covering their eyes."

Dermott said, "Didn't that strike you as odd?"

"Not at all. It was dark, and we had our headlights on. It seemed natural they should shield their eyes from the glare."

There was a pause. Then Brinckman went on, "Well -- this guy with the damaged arm -- as I thought -- came weaving up to my side of the bus, I grabbed the first-aid box and jumped out. I slipped on the ice, and by the time I had my balance I saw the man had dropped his hand and was wearing a stocking mask. Then I saw his left arm coming up. It was almost a blur, but I could see he had some kind of a sap in his hand. I had no time to react." He fingered his forehead gingerly. "That's all, I guess."

Dermott crossed to him and examined the contusion on the side of his forehead. "Nasty. Could have been worse, though. An inch or so further back and you'd likely have had a fractured temple. Looks as if your friend was using lead shot. A leather bludgeon wouldn't have done that."

Brinckman stared at him in an odd fashion. "Lead, you reckon?"

"I should think so." Dermott turned to Jorgensen. "I take it you hadn't much better luck?"

"At least I wasn't blackjacked. I just thought my jaw had been broken. The other guy was either a heavyweight champion, or he was clutching something heavy in his fist. I couldn't see. He jerked open Mr. Reynolds' door, flung in some kind of smoke bomb, then banged the door shut again."

"Tear gas," said Willoughby. "You can see his eyes are still inflamed."

"I got out," Jorgensen went on. "I waved my gun around, but it might have been a water pistol, the use it was. I was blind. Next thing I remember, Pete Johnson was trying to shake some sense into us."

"So, of course, you don't know how Reynolds and his passengers made out." Jim Brady looked around. He was taking over. "Where's Carmody?"

"Down at the station," said Shore. "Still making his report. Pete Johnson's with him. They'll be here presently."

"Good." Brady turned back to Brinckman. "The man who attacked you -- was he wearing gloves?"

"I'm not sure." Brinckman thought and then said, "Once he'd passed out of the beam of the headlights, he was in pretty deep shadow, and, as I said, it all happened so damn quickly. But I don't think so."

"Your man, Mr. Jorgensen?"

"I could see his hand pretty clearly as he threw the tear-gas canister. No -- no glove."

"Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Willoughby, a few questions if I may."

"Go ahead." Willoughby cleared his throat.

"This truck the kidnappers used -- you say it was stolen?"

"That's right."

"It's been identified?"

"Belongs to a local garage proprietor. It was known he was off on a couple of days' hunting trip."